I was wondering if I could call on the collective wisdom of you good people. On various parts of the web there are download files for the all 77 editions of Beatles Book magazine (eg http://octaner.blogspot.com/20.....d-rom.html, or search beatles book rapidshare/megaupload for more).

Unfortunately these involve burning the files to CD and accessing it as a CD Rom, which is pretty archaic technology nowadays. Does anyone know of a way to convert the CD Rom files to pdf or simple text/image files? If so do let me know.

Please don't spoil my day; I'm miles away

Can buy me love! Please consider using these links to support the Beatles Bible: Amazon | iTunes

Ok, I found this program: Contenta DCR Converter It works for PC and Mac, it's free, and it works – without any stupid watermarks.

Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo! So little time! So much to know!

15 March 20105.44pm

Joe

Pepperland

Admin

Forum Posts: 5032

Member Since: 31 March 2008

Offline

3

Unfortunately the free trial does carry a watermark.

About six months ago I spent ages looking for a service that could convert this material but drew a blank. It's a shame the person who digitised the Beatles Book issues decided CD Rom was the most effective way of doing so.

Please don't spoil my day; I'm miles away

Can buy me love! Please consider using these links to support the Beatles Bible: Amazon | iTunes

I give up. It won't even play as a cd rom. The files don't want to convert to anything (.pdf, .bmp, .swf, .png, etc). It won't open in Kodak Easyshare, Picassa, vlc, internet explorer, quicktime. I just don't get it.

Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo! So little time! So much to know!

16 March 20109.32am

Joe

Pepperland

Admin

Forum Posts: 5032

Member Since: 31 March 2008

Offline

6

Glad it's not just me. It's frustrating, getting so close to all that great content and not being able to view it. Oh well, hopefully at some point someone in the know will stumble upon this thread and enlighten us. Maybe we need a Windows 95 machine.

Please don't spoil my day; I'm miles away

Can buy me love! Please consider using these links to support the Beatles Bible: Amazon | iTunes

I think I might have a solution to convert it into a more useful format. You know those how-to videos on various types of software? I don't see why it should't work for this.

Edit: Success! It might not be the most elegant solution, but it works! It should look better if I raise the quality - this is just a test.

Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo! So little time! So much to know!

17 March 20101.37am

McLerristarr

A Place

Royal Command Performance

Members

Forum Posts: 253

Member Since: 13 November 2009

Offline

8

skye said:

I think I might have a solution to convert it into a more useful format. You know those how-to videos on various types of software? I don't see why it should't work for this.

Edit: Success! It might not be the most elegant solution, but it works! It should look better if I raise the quality - this is just a test.

I always love reading this kind of thing written in the early 60s. They went on about the Beatles new fame but had no idea what was yet to come. I especially love reading articles or quotes where the author/speaker says the Beatles are a passing fad or aren't very good - EPIC FAIL!

17 March 20101.39am

skye

AZ

Candlestick Park

Members

Forum Posts: 2252

Member Since: 12 November 2009

Offline

9

Here is one at a higher quality. Is it legible?

Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo! So little time! So much to know!

17 March 201010.00am

Joe

Pepperland

Admin

Forum Posts: 5032

Member Since: 31 March 2008

Offline

10

Just about. Thanks for that. Let me know how you did it and I'll see if I can convert the whole lot to pdf.

McLerristarr - my uncle once photocopied me a load of Beatles articles from old NMEs, Melody Makers and other 60s music papers. I don't have them anymore, unfortunately, but I remember reading a track-by-track review of Revolver
in which two writers were generally bemused by some of the songs, though interestingly they liked Tomorrow Never Knows
. Music journalism in the 60s was a lot safer and more polite than it is nowadays, and they'd get excited about things like the jazz influence on Got To Get You Into My Life
.

"I was let down by Don't Let Me Down
" is another quote I recall. I wish I still had them now. I might ask my uncle for the originals - I could add them to the blog here.

Please don't spoil my day; I'm miles away

Can buy me love! Please consider using these links to support the Beatles Bible: Amazon | iTunes

Just about. Thanks for that. Let me know how you did it and I'll see if I can convert the whole lot to pdf.

McLerristarr – my uncle once photocopied me a load of Beatles articles from old NMEs, Melody Makers and other 60s music papers. I don't have them anymore, unfortunately, but I remember reading a track-by-track review of Revolver
in which two writers were generally bemused by some of the songs, though interestingly they liked Tomorrow Never Knows
. Music journalism in the 60s was a lot safer and more polite than it is nowadays, and they'd get excited about things like the jazz influence on Got To Get You Into My Life
.

"I was let down by Don't Let Me Down
" is another quote I recall. I wish I still had them now. I might ask my uncle for the originals – I could add them to the blog here.

That would be cool.

I once borrowed a book from the library on the 1000 greatest singles of all time or something, there were quite a few Beatles singles. In the book, it had a short quote about the single from a review around the time it was released – the author deliberately chose mostly bad reviews to prove how wrong journalists can be. I can only remember two. There was a Beatles one that sounded sarcastic as it said something along the lines of "George Harrison
is the only guitarist I know that can pull off a guitar solo without making it sound planned." and "I like the drummer – whatever his name is." The other one I remember was a review of '(Just Like) Starting Over' by John Lennon
basically said John's idea of rock was outdated and the guitar was "wimpy". I wonder whether journalists who make those kinds of reviews about songs/albums/artists that become popular ever stick by what they said or whether they pretend they always liked them.

17 March 201011.07am

mjb

Carnegie Hall

Members

Forum Posts: 519

Member Since: 14 October 2009

Offline

12

I have everyone of the Beatles Book in it's original state (albeit the reprints from 1976) but I don't fancy PDF-ing them all - sorry 🙂

"If we feel our heads starting to swell.....we just look at Ringo!"

17 March 201011.14am

skye

AZ

Candlestick Park

Members

Forum Posts: 2252

Member Since: 12 November 2009

Offline

13

Dream killer. ()

Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo! So little time! So much to know!

17 March 201012.48pm

mjb

Carnegie Hall

Members

Forum Posts: 519

Member Since: 14 October 2009

Offline

14

skye said:

Dream killer. ()

Well it WOULD be a killer that's for sure - I'd go blind and the scanner would explode

"If we feel our heads starting to swell.....we just look at Ringo!"

20 September 201012.09am

skye

AZ

Candlestick Park

Members

Forum Posts: 2252

Member Since: 12 November 2009

Offline

15

Just digging this up to see if anyone has any ideas on how to cleanly extract images from this CD-ROM. I've refined my technique, but it is a tedious process. Anyway, here are some sample pages from issue 20.

As you can see, the quality isn't as good as it could be, and believe me, it looks a lot better on the CD-ROM.

Ideas?

Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo! So little time! So much to know!

20 September 20102.33am

Marcelo

Ed Sullivan Show

Members

Forum Posts: 478

Member Since: 27 February 2010

Offline

16

It's a ".ISO" archive? If it is, you can open and extract the info inside with 7-zip.

I'd like to say "thank you" on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition.
John Lennon

20 September 20103.03am

skye

AZ

Candlestick Park

Members

Forum Posts: 2252

Member Since: 12 November 2009

Offline

17

No it's an executable file. Here's what I'm looking at:

Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo! So little time! So much to know!

20 September 20103.17am

sarah machinella

Shea Stadium

Members

Forum Posts: 876

Member Since: 8 April 2010

Offline

18

Well, you could always just open up the CD rom, and then take a screen cap. Unless that's what you've been doing, in which case... Is there a way to go into the resources of the file and find the image files?

20 September 20103.18am

mithveaen

Sitarday's room

Rishikesh

Members

Forum Posts: 4621

Member Since: 1 May 2010

Offline

19

Skye, can you print-screen the content of one of the folders?? It seems the files are there. If I know the extension, I might figure out how to extract them.

Here comes the sun….. Scoobie-doobie……

Something in the way she moves…..attracts me like a cauliflower…

Bop. Bop, cat bop. Go, Johnny, Go.

Beware of Darkness…

20 September 20104.18am

skye

AZ

Candlestick Park

Members

Forum Posts: 2252

Member Since: 12 November 2009

Offline

20

Paulrus said:

Well, you could always just open up the CD rom, and then take a screen cap. Unless that's what you've been doing, in which case... Is there a way to go into the resources of the file and find the image files?

I was hoping you could tell me. Screen caps aren't hard but there's 77 issues, 14 pages each. I basically make a 20 second video (it won't let hit print screen), break it up into individual shots, delete the extras and crop the remaining. Like I said, tedious.

mithveaen said:

Skye, can you print-screen the content of one of the folders?? It seems the files are there. If I know the extension, I might figure out how to extract them.

Buy my book!

The Bowie Bible

Like David Bowie? Of course you do. Don't miss our sister site, the Bowie Bible, now live!

Can buy me love

The Beatles Bible is run for the love of anything and everything to do with The Beatles. If you've learned something new about the band and wish to show your appreciation, why not make a small donation via PayPal? It'll help with server costs, research material etc...